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Demand and Supply When

Demand and Supply When people talk about prices, the discussion often takes a judgmental tone. A bidder in an auction pays thousands of dollars for a dress once worn by Diana, Princess of Wales. A collector spends thousands of dollars for some drawings by John Lennon of the Beatles. Mouths gape. Surely such purchases are a waste of money? But when economists talk about prices, they are less interested in making judgments than in gaining a practical understanding of what determines prices and why prices change. In 1933, the great British economist Joan Robinson (1903–1983) explained how economists perceive price: The point may be put like this: You see two men, one of whom is giving a banana to the other, and is taking a penny from him. You ask, How is it that a banana costs a penny rather than any other sum? The most obvious line of attack on this question is to break it up into two fresh questions: How does it happen that the one man will take a penny for a banana? and: How does it happen that the other man will give a penny for a banana? In short, the natural thing is to divide up the problem under two heads: Supply and Demand. As a contemporary example, consider a price often listed on large signs beside well-traveled roads: the price of a gallon of gasoline. Why was the average price of gasoline in the United States $1.77 per gallon in January 2009? Why did the price for gasoline rise to $2.60 per gallon six months later by June 2009? To explain why prices are at a certain level and why that level changes over time, economic analysis focuses on the determinants of what gasoline buyers are willing to pay and what gasoline sellers are willing to accept. For example, the price of a gallon of gasoline in June of a given year is nearly always higher than the price in January of that year; over recent decades, gasoline prices in midsummer have averaged about 10 cents per gallon more than their midwinter low. The likely 59

60 Chapter 4 Demand and Supply reason is that people want to drive more in the summer, and thus they are willing to pay more for gas at that time. However, in 2009, gasoline prices rose by much more than the average winter-to-summer rise, which suggests that other factors related to those who buy gasoline and firms that sell it changed during those six months, too. This chapter introduces the economic model of demand and supply. The discussion begins by examining how demand and supply determine the price and the quantity sold in markets for goods and services, and how changes in demand and supply lead to changes in prices and quantities. Then in Chapter 5, the very same demand and supply model is applied to markets for labor and financial capital. In Chapter 6, the same supply and demand model is applied to international trade. In situation after situation, in different places around the world, across different cultures, even reaching back into history, the demand and supply model offers a useful framework for thinking about what determines the prices and quantities of what is bought and sold. Demand, Supply, and Equilibrium in Markets for Goods and Services Markets for goods and services include everything from accounting services, air travel, and apples to zinc, zinfandel wine, and zucchini. Let’s first focus on what economists mean by demand, what they mean by supply, and then how demand and supply interact in an economic model of the market. Demand for Goods and Services Economists use the term demand to refer to a relationship between price and the quantity demanded. Price is what a buyer pays (or the seller receives) for a unit of the specific good or service. Quantity demanded refers to the total number of units that are purchased at that price. A rise in price of a good or service almost always decreases the quantity demanded of that good or service; conversely, a fall in price will increase the quantity demanded. When the price of a gallon of gasoline goes up, for example, people look for ways to reduce their purchases of gasoline by combining several errands, commuting by carpool or mass transit, or taking weekend or vacation trips by car close to home. Economists refer to the relationship that a higher price leads to a lower quantity demanded as the law of demand. Exhibit 4-1 gives an example in the market for gasoline. The table which shows the quantity demanded at each price is called a demand schedule. Price in this case is measured per gallon of gasoline. The quantity demanded is measured in millions of gallons over some time period (for example, per day or per year) and over some geographic area (like a state or a country). A demand curve shows the relationship between price and quantity demanded on a graph, with quantity on the horizontal axis and the price per gallon on the vertical axis. The demand schedule shown by the table and the demand curve shown on the graph are two ways of describing the same relationship between price and quantity demanded. Each individual good or service needs to be graphed on its own demand curve, because it wouldn’t make sense to graph the quantity of apples and the quantity of oranges on the same diagram. Demand curves will appear somewhat different for each product; for example, they may appear relatively steep or flat, or they may be straight or curved. But nearly all demand curves share the fundamental similarity that they demand: A relationship between price and the quantity demanded of a certain good or service. quantity demanded: The total number of units of a good or service purchased at a certain price. law of demand: The common relationship that a higher price leads to a lower quantity demanded of a certain good or service. demand schedule: A table that shows a range of prices for a certain good or service and the quantity demanded at each price. demand curve: A line that shows the relationship between price and quantity demanded of a certain good or service on a graph, with quantity on the horizontal axis and the price on the vertical axis.